I knew that I was destined to fail my daughter in some profound way, so when she turned away from my nipple, stiffening in my arms, her soft lips tightly pursed, I was not surprised. My trying to nudge her back to the nipple only intensified her resolve. As she resisted, the strength of her will, the strength in her neck and jaw, astonished me. Hungry and underweight, she lay rigid in my arms. I knew what she wanted. Knew I was out of time, so I did the only thing left to do. I gave her the damned bottle.
Margaret MacInnis lives and writes in Iowa City. Her work has been published widely in literary reviews, most recently in Brevity, DIAGRAM, and Ghost Parachute.